[GUIDE] OTA Tools LPUnpack

[Y_Marques]

Hello,

After unpacking the super image I get successfully the contained images, but I'm having a problem at the moment of mounting them:

wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop10, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

The ony way I could make it work is as follows (but of course I don't have write access):

sudo mount -o ro system_a.img ./mount

Also I cannot modify any of the permissions once mounted.

I didn't have this issue modifying Android Images previous to the dynamic partition implementation. Someone had experience this issue?

 

[Lossyx]

Hello,

After unpacking the super image I get successfully the contained images, but I'm having a problem at the moment of mounting them:

The ony way I could make it work is as follows (but of course I don't have write access):

sudo mount -o ro system_a.img ./mount

Also I cannot modify any of the permissions once mounted.

I didn't have this issue modifying Android Images previous to the dynamic partition implementation. Someone had experience this issue?

You need to deduplicate the blocks first. Which you can do by running e2fsck -E unshare_blocks, but first you need to resize the partition to give enough space.

If anyone's wondering, here's how you can directly modify logical partition and flash it back to your device.

Make Dynamic Partition Read/Write

Make Dynamic Partition Read/Write. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

Big thanks to @thohac for pretty much telling me how to do it and getting me in the right track.

 

[Y_Marques]

You need to deduplicate the blocks first. Which you can do by running e2fsck -E unshare_blocks, but first you need to resize the partition to give enough space.

If anyone's wondering, here's how you can directly modify logical partition and flash it back to your device.

Make Dynamic Partition Read/Write

Make Dynamic Partition Read/Write. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

Big thanks to @thohac for pretty much telling me how to do it and getting me in the right track.

Thank you for te guidance, it worked as expected. The shared post is very useful too.

 

[dewettie]

Anyone can help how to repack an unpacked super.img?
Try to delete an app in the product and system.img and post the instructions to repack everything into a super.img again.
My goal is to remove most of the preinstalled Google apps.

Here is the firmware link
It is for a different device but the principle should work the same

UMIDIGI_A9_PRO_128GB_V1-0_20210127

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

It seems the firmware is non-A/B.

How do you get this size?
3)--device super: The size of the “super” partition on the device. It must match exactly, and it must be evenly divisible by the sector size (512 bytes).

After repacking I also get this error, is it normal?
'Invalid sparse file format at header magic'

 

[Y_Marques]

Anyone can help how to repack an unpacked super.img?
Try to delete an app in the product and system.img and post the instructions to repack everything into a super.img again.
My goal is to remove most of the preinstalled Google apps.

Here is the firmware link
It is for a different device but the principle should work the same

UMIDIGI_A9_PRO_128GB_V1-0_20210127

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

It seems the firmware is non-A/B.

How do you get this size?
3)--device super: The size of the “super” partition on the device. It must match exactly, and it must be evenly divisible by the sector size (512 bytes).

After repacking I also get this error, is it normal?
'Invalid sparse file format at header magic'

There is multiple ways to get the size of the super partition. One of the most convenient ones is to reboot the devices in the bootloader and run

fastboot getvar partition-size:super

.

The invalid sparse message after repacking the super image is normal afaik.

 

[Lossyx]

Anyone can help how to repack an unpacked super.img?
Try to delete an app in the product and system.img and post the instructions to repack everything into a super.img again.
My goal is to remove most of the preinstalled Google apps.

Here is the firmware link
It is for a different device but the principle should work the same

UMIDIGI_A9_PRO_128GB_V1-0_20210127

MediaFire is a simple to use free service that lets you put all your photos, documents, music, and video in a single place so you can access them anywhere and share them everywhere.

www.mediafire.com

It seems the firmware is non-A/B.

How do you get this size?
3)--device super: The size of the “super” partition on the device. It must match exactly, and it must be evenly divisible by the sector size (512 bytes).

After repacking I also get this error, is it normal?
'Invalid sparse file format at header magic'

Unpacking the super is not the best way. You should dump product with dd or payload bin. Or at least I think that's the best way.

 

[giubenez]

I edited the vendor.img followed this guide but something strange happens:


$stat -c '%n %s' *
super.img 3758096384
product.img 1596944384
system.img 1128718336
vendor.img 544976896

$../otatools/bin/lpmake --metadata-size 65536 --super-name super --metadata-slots 1 --device super:3758096384 --group main:3270639616 --partition system:readonly:1128718336:main --image system=./system.img --partition vendor:readonly:544976896:main --image vendor=./vendor.img --partition product:readonly:1596944384:main --image product=./product.img --sparse --output ./super.new.img
lpmake I 02-17 12:18:27 2646704 2646704 builder.cpp:1012] [liblp]Partition system will resize from 0 bytes to 1128718336 bytes
lpmake I 02-17 12:18:27 2646704 2646704 builder.cpp:1012] [liblp]Partition vendor will resize from 0 bytes to 544976896 bytes
lpmake I 02-17 12:18:27 2646704 2646704 builder.cpp:1012] [liblp]Partition product will resize from 0 bytes to 1596944384 bytes
Invalid sparse file format at header magic
Invalid sparse file format at header magic
Invalid sparse file format at header magic

BUT....

$stat -c '%n %s' super.new.img
super.new.img 3248851200

which is not divisible by 512!

Shouldn't it be 3758096384 ?

 

[Lossyx]

I edited the vendor.img followed this guide but something strange happens:


$stat -c '%n %s' *
super.img 3758096384
product.img 1596944384
system.img 1128718336
vendor.img 544976896

$../otatools/bin/lpmake --metadata-size 65536 --super-name super --metadata-slots 1 --device super:3758096384 --group main:3270639616 --partition system:readonly:1128718336:main --image system=./system.img --partition vendor:readonly:544976896:main --image vendor=./vendor.img --partition product:readonly:1596944384:main --image product=./product.img --sparse --output ./super.new.img
lpmake I 02-17 12:18:27 2646704 2646704 builder.cpp:1012] [liblp]Partition system will resize from 0 bytes to 1128718336 bytes
lpmake I 02-17 12:18:27 2646704 2646704 builder.cpp:1012] [liblp]Partition vendor will resize from 0 bytes to 544976896 bytes
lpmake I 02-17 12:18:27 2646704 2646704 builder.cpp:1012] [liblp]Partition product will resize from 0 bytes to 1596944384 bytes
Invalid sparse file format at header magic
Invalid sparse file format at header magic
Invalid sparse file format at header magic

BUT....

$stat -c '%n %s' super.new.img
super.new.img 3248851200

which is not divisible by 512!

Shouldn't it be 3758096384 ?

That guide seems awfully complicated, unless it's trying to accomplish something different.

You can use my guide (s). I've made the vendor partition R/W and resized couple of times now.

Make Dynamic Partition Read/Write

Make Dynamic Partition Read/Write. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

 

[giubenez]

That guide seems awfully complicated, unless it's trying to accomplish something different.

You can use my guide (s). I've made the vendor partition R/W and resized couple of times now.

Make Dynamic Partition Read/Write

Make Dynamic Partition Read/Write. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

thank you for your response.
I started from a super partition, so i guess i have to use lpmake to rebuild the super.img.
I just need to edit the fstab to disable avb/dm-verity manually by removing the avb keys.
However, without changing the partition size, I cannot modify (see here ) the file.

If I use
$ e2fsck -E unshare_blocks vendor.img
without resizing the partition I cannot edit the file.

 

[Lossyx]

thank you for your response.
I started from a super partition, so i guess i have to use lpmake to rebuild the super.img.
I just need to edit the fstab to disable avb/dm-verity manually by removing the avb keys.
However, without changing the partition size, I cannot modify (see here ) the file.

If I use
$ e2fsck -E unshare_blocks vendor.img
without resizing the partition I cannot edit the file.

You don't need to touch the super partition at all.
Again, look at my guide, I do resize the partition to make space.

With my method, just resize it to 2 or 3GB, unshared its blocks. Then in order it flash it just resize the logical partition on device.

Previously I resized vendor, unshared its block, but I couldn't resize it back because now if was bigger than before so you had to delete other stuff. Being the vendor, that would be dangerous.
Although, you could resize to minimum size and just resize the logical partition in fastbootd.

If you do want to resize the partition and then back, I used this command to get the size.

ls -l --block-size=4k partition.img

 

[giubenez]

You don't need to touch the super partition at all.
Again, look at my guide, I do resize the partition to make space.

With my method, just resize it to 2 or 3GB, unshared its blocks. Then in order it flash it just resize the logical partition on device.

Previously I resized vendor, unshared its block, but I couldn't resize it back because now if was bigger than before so you had to delete other stuff. Being the vendor, that would be dangerous.
Although, you could resize to minimum size and just resize the logical partition in fastbootd.

If you do want to resize the partition and then back, I used this command to get the size.

ls -l --block-size=4k partition.img

Again, it seems to me that we are not talking the same language. I don't have a OP 7T, but a Doogee S96, I posted here bacause we are talking of lpunpack.

Your guide start with talking of payload.bin, I googled what it is but I don't have any stock rom nor OTA update.

I don't have vendor image, at least I can't see it from fastboot or adb.
I can't boot, i flashed TWRP but I'm not able to disable dm-verity (AVB) so my phone goes directly to the recovery after boot.

The only fstab with avb flags I found is on /dev/block/platform/bootdevice/by-name/super --(lpunpack)--> vendor/etc/fstab.mt6785

I just need to remove the avb flags, save and repack with lpmake. I don't need more space for that, I just have to edit the plain thext file and repack everything.
Nevertheless I cannot edit fstab.mt6785 without increasing the size of the partition. Is it normal? Even though I delete a wav file and unshare_blocks i cannot edit fstab.mt6785.

Thank you for your help, any suggestion is appreciated.

 

[Lossyx]

Again, it seems to me that we are not talking the same language. I don't have a OP 7T, but a Doogee S96, I posted here bacause we are talking of lpunpack.

Your guide start with talking of payload.bin, I googled what it is but I don't have any stock rom nor OTA update.

I don't have vendor image, at least I can't see it from fastboot or adb.
I can't boot, i flashed TWRP but I'm not able to disable dm-verity (AVB) so my phone goes directly to the recovery after boot.

The only fstab with avb flags I found is on /dev/block/platform/bootdevice/by-name/super --(lpunpack)--> vendor/etc/fstab.mt6785

I just need to remove the avb flags, save and repack with lpmake. I don't need more space for that, I just have to edit the plain thext file and repack everything.
Nevertheless I cannot edit fstab.mt6785 without increasing the size of the partition. Is it normal? Even though I delete a wav file and unshare_blocks i cannot edit fstab.mt6785.

Thank you for your help, any suggestion is appreciated.

My bad, but given we're in the 7T section and you didn't mention your device beforehand I assumed you had a 7T.
--- My thoughts below will be all over the place, hopefully, I don't confuse you. ---

I think your device does a vendor partition, my output the same as yours of the first link you linked.
Although it should be somewhere in /dev/block/dm-x (or if there is something similar)?.
When I mounted vendor with TWRP and ran "df -h" I could see it being mounted to dm-9 for example.
Although, in your case, I see your TWRP is not properly updated for dynamic partitions so it might be hard to mount it.

I guess this is the need lpunpack. But I still believe you can follow the steps I linked, but you are just getting the vendor in another way(extracting from super partition).

On that note, I'm not sure I see the need to repack the super partition. I never touched the super partition even though vendor is in it. I just resized. unshared it blocks, resized it, and flashed it.

Fastbootd is the new interface to handle logical partitions.
Moving Fastboot to Userspace | Android Open Source Project

Other than this I am afraid I cannot help you more. I myself am still inexperienced when it comes to this, especially regarding lpunpack.

 

[lebigmac]

I just need to edit the fstab to disable avb/dm-verity manually by removing the avb keys.

Hi @giubenez
Have you tried to disable DM verity by simply booting into TWRP and then executing these 2 commands?

adb disable-verity

adb shell avbctl disable-verification

 

[lebigmac]

to be edited...

 

[alecxs]

Hi @giubenez
Have you tried to disable DM verity by simply booting into TWRP and then executing these 2 commands?

adb disable-verity

adb shell avbctl disable-verification

that works only on userdebug builds (custom ROM?)

 

[lebigmac]

that works only on userdebug builds (custom ROM?)

Did you try running those commands inside TWRP which is an engineer build?
The result should carry over into android.
You can double check this by extracting the avbctl app from inside TWRP and run it inside Android. It will say that dm-verity is already disabled.

 

[beta.0]

Has anyone been able to repack Amlogic super.img with lpmake?

I extracted odm, product, system & vendor from an OTA zip, converted them to sparse and replaced the originals from an older aml_upgrade_package.img (extracted using xVortex kitchen v5).

lpmake built the image without any error but when I flash it to the device it goes into a boot loop, only getting to the boot logo before restarting.

Maybe xVortex is not rebuilding the full upgrade package correctly? It's an S905X4 based device.

 

[ytagger]

Has anyone been able to repack Amlogic super.img with lpmake?

I extracted odm, product, system & vendor from an OTA zip, converted them to sparse and replaced the originals from an older aml_upgrade_package.img (extracted using xVortex kitchen v5).

lpmake built the image without any error but when I flash it to the device it goes into a boot loop, only getting to the boot logo before restarting.

Maybe xVortex is not rebuilding the full upgrade package correctly? It's an S905X4 based device.

I'm having the same issue with a super partition pulled from my device with edl

 

[banzeo]

That's great! Thanks. Could you add lpdump also?

 

[blaze2051]

anyone have a guide on how to repack a boot.img with twrp injected into it?
and how to replace the system_a.img from a super.img and repack it?